The Story of the Bible, Part 17
What about the foreign women taken captive by Israel? Were they "sex slaves"?
Joshua, part 2—The women taken captive
When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they obliterated, at God’s command, most of the heathen nations dwelling there. I gave the reasons for this annihilation in the last article in my series. Skeptics, who seek any excuse to deny the Bible, don’t like those rationales, but I don’t like skeptics, so one person’s “likes” and “dislikes” are totally irrelevant. God had a justifiable reason for punishing those nations and He did so. Even most skeptics understand the need for purity and justice, though some obviously don’t, given modern Leftist standards evident in the world today.
But what about the “women and children” that the Israel took into captivity? “Sex slavery!” the unbeliever cries, and misses the point by about 180 degrees. Indeed, God told the Israelites to “strike every male...with the edge of the sword” (Deuteronomy 20:13). Men could fight so they needed to be utterly defeated for the protection of the covenant people—and eventually you and me.
“But the women, the little ones...you shall plunder for yourself” (Deuteronomy 20:14). There is nothing about “sex slavery” here, indeed, it was for the protection of the women themselves. They, and the children, could not fight thus were no threat to Israel. They could work in the fields, as Ruth did (read that short book). Because they were no military threat, God rarely allowed them to be put to death; one example where the women were put to death is in Number 31:16, when they actively and voluntarily engaged in Balaam’s sin that led to the death of thousands of God’s people. Those guilty women were justifiable slain. Otherwise, God protected them AND He provided husbands and fathers for them. Israelite men were allowed to take more than one wife, and concubines. That wasn’t God’s perfect plan from the beginning, but it is always necessary to remember that mankind, with no written word from God since the fall, drifted further and further away from the moral purity He intended. By the 2nd millennium B.C., the world was, at best, a savage and barbaric place. The Law of Moses regulated and limited, among the Jews, many of these horrible abuses. That law wasn’t perfect; it was never intended to be (except for the purposes God had in giving it). It doesn’t measure up to our standards today, it didn’t measure up to Christ’s standards in the first century. That’s one reason why He came and gave us the “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25).
The hypocritical cry of “sex slavery!” from those today who defend pedophilia and the butchering of innocent children for the ultimate sexual pleasure of perverts is truly an amazing, and revolting, thing to behold. There may have indeed been some evil Israelites who were guilty of sex slavery; they certainly proved to be a wicked people. But God never commanded such wickedness, and protected the weaker of society, even those who were captured in war. And there is certainly no indication they ever mutilated their own children for sexual perversity. If they were a primitive, barbarian people (and basically, they were), what does that make our modern sex-obsessed Leftist?
There was no government “welfare” system in the Old Testament, and women who lost their husbands and children who lost their fathers could be in desperate straits (though “the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow” were provided for in a primitive “welfare” structure, see Deuteronomy 24:19 and other such verses). So, God allowed the Jewish men to take extra wives, or concubines, and this provided protection and sustenance for these women and children. It was the way God, in these primitive, barbaric times, took care of these women and children. Perfect? To us, no. To the New Testament law, no. But for the practical situation faced by the Jews in the 2nd millennium B.C., it was a reasonable and compassionate solution. The warrior class among the Jews’ enemies had to be destroyed for reasons discussed in part 16 of this series. God provided for those who were not fighters, were unable to take care of themselves, and were thus no threat to the covenant people.
These women were not “sex slaves,” as I had someone tell me once. That is utterly ridiculous, but again, when one looks for a reason to reject God and His word, he WILL find it. A lack of understanding by unbelievers of ancient history and culture is not God’s fault, and neither is a rebellious heart.
Incidentally, read Deuteronomy 21:10-14 to see that foreign women taken by Israelite men were safeguarded. They weren’t slaves and they had rights.
Slavery is another issue that causes skeptics to foam at the mouth. Let me discuss slavery, Biblical and otherwise, in my next article of “The Story of the Bible.”